The Man from Brodneys | Page 8

duchy; his army was a
mere matter of taxation and not a thing of pomp or necessity. Four
times a year he inspected the troops, and just as many times in the year
were the troops obliged to devote themselves to rigorous display. The
rest of the time was spent in social intrigue and whistling for the
war-clouds that never came.
The precise location of the Grand Duchy in the map of the world has
little or nothing to do with this narrative; indeed, were it not for the fact
that the Grand Duke possessed a charming and most desirable daughter,
the Thorberg dynasty would not be mentioned at all. For that matter, it
is brought to light briefly for the sole purpose of identifying the young
lady in question, and the still more urgent desire to connect her past
with her future--for which we have, perhaps intemperately, an especial
consideration. It is only necessary, therefore, for us to step into and out
of the Grand Duchy without the procrastination usual in a sojourner,
stopping long enough only to see how tiresome it would be to stay, and
to wonder why any one remained who could get away. Not that the
Grand Duchy was an utterly undesirable place, but that too much time
already had been wasted there by the populace itself.

It has been said that events of a most unusual character were happening;
any event that roused the people from their daily stolidity was
sufficiently unusual to suggest the superlative. The Grand Duke's peace
of mind had been severely disturbed--so severely, in fact, that he was
transferring his troubles to the Emperor, who, in turn, felt obliged to
communicate with the United States Ambassador, and who, in his turn,
had no other alternative than to take summary action in respect to the
indiscretions of a fellow-countryman.
In the beginning, it was not altogether the fault of the young man who
had come from America to serve his country. Whatever may have been
the turmoil in the Grand Duke's palace at Thorberg, Chase's conscience
was even and serene. He had no excuses to offer--for that matter none
would have been entertained--and he was resigning his post with the
confidence that he had performed his obligations as an American
gentleman should, even though the performance had created an
extraordinary commotion. Chase was new to the Old World and its
customs, especially those rigorous ones which surrounded royalty and
denied it the right to venture into the commonplace. The ambassador at
the capital of the Empire at first sought to excuse him on the ground of
ignorance; but the Grand Duke insisted that even an American could
not be such a fool as Chase had been; so, it must have been a wilful
offence that led up to the controversy.
Chase had been the representative of the American Government at
Thorberg for six months. He never fully understood why the
government should have a representative there; but that was a matter
quite entirely for the President to consider. The American flag floated
above his doorway in the Friedrich Strasse, but in all his six months of
occupation not ten Americans had crossed the threshold. As a matter of
fact, he had seen fewer than twenty Americans in all that time. He was
a vigorous, healthy young man, and it may well be presumed that the
situation bored him. Small wonder, then, that he kept out of mischief
for half a year. Diplomatic service is one thing and the lack of
opportunity is quite another. Chase did his best to find occupation for
his diplomacy, but what chance had he with nothing ahead of him but
regular reports to the department in which he could only announce that

he was in good health and that no one had "called."
Chase belonged to the diplomatic class which owes its elevation to the
influence of Congress--not to Congress as a body but to one of its
atoms. He was not a politician; no more was he an office seeker. He
was a real soldier of fortune, in search of affairs--in peace or in war, on
land or at sea. Possessed of a small income, sufficiently adequate to
sustain life if he managed to advance it to the purple age (but wholly
incapable of supporting him as a thriftless diplomat), he was compelled
to make the best of his talents, no matter to what test they were put. He
left college at twenty-two, possessed of the praiseworthy design to earn
his own way without recourse to the $4,500 income from a certain trust
fund. His plan also incorporated the hope to save every penny of that
income for the possible "rainy day." He was now thirty; in each of
several New York banks he had something like